Following Jesus in Great Southern

Reasons for Murder

Last week there were two double murders of children in Australia. One on the east coast, and one on the west.

I haven’t heard much about the circumstances of the murder on the west coast. But I’ve heard plenty about the circumstances of the one no the east.

Because the kids on the east coast had autism. And the thing I have heard the most is about how difficult they were to manage, and how people can understand that their father (or perhaps both parents) might kill them.

The other parents at the children’s school were shocked, but it was the media commentators who were most understanding and sympathetic of the idea of killing them.

I haven’t heard anything like that, not even close to approaching that, about the murders of two children by their father (as it seems) in the west.

Our society has reached the point where people who reflect and set moral standards through their opinion columns think that the murder of children is understandable and justifiable. Because we have got to the point where the inconvenience and difficulty of dealing with people who are not ‘normal’ has become intolerable. We think that the burden of dealing with those who are difficult, those who are not the same as us, is something that no-one should have to put up with.

People justify abortion because a baby might be an inconvenience to your plans, or because a baby may have a disability. People justify euthanasia because they might not be able to do as much as they used to, or have a ‘full’ life, or not have a long life left. It doesn’t take much beyond that to ‘understand’ why someone might murder their disabled children.

Without the understanding that every life is created in the image of God, there isn’t much of a logical reason to not kill some classes of people who are not quite like most of us.

Jesus may well make the difference between life and death in this world, as well as the next. You might want to think about what Jesus has to say about life and what it is worth, before you become convinced that some lives are not worth living.